Ex-Apple Engineer Charged with Intellectual Property Theft

Ex-Apple Engineer Charged with Intellectual Property Theft

At least he didn’t try to hide the documents in a peanut butter sandwich.

An ex-Apple engineer working on Apple’s self-driving car project has been charged by the Justice Department for stealing Apple trade secrets and transferring them to an unnamed Chinese company.

Weiboa Wang allegedly stole documents from Apple before he left the company in April 2018. He worked for Apple for 2 years before getting another job offer at the Chinese company.

US law enforcement searched Wang’s house in June 2018 for the documents. A scan of Weiboa Wang’s devices showed he stole a large amount of data regarding Apple’s self-driving car project. Wang informed law enforcement he had no plans of leaving the US and proceeded to purchase a one-way ticket to Gangzhou, China the same day of the search.

He’s now at-large in China. He’ll face 6 counts and 10 years in prison if he’s extradited. 2 other ex-Apple employees were caught stealing Apple documentation. One is in jail. The other is facing charges.